Bacterial Mats

I photographed these bacterial mats along the Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. I’m always fascinated by the many color hues in these mats. These ribbons of color are formed by bacteria and other heat loving microorganisms.The green, brown, and orange mats are cyanobacteria, which can live in waters as hot as 167 F. At higher temperatures they are green and they turn orange, rust or brown as the water cools. So, if you want to see brighter bacterial mats then it’s best to go in the summer.

Bacterial Mats

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV using my Canon EF 16-35 mm f/4 Lens set on 16mm. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/8, shutter speed at 1/200th of a second and the ISO set at 100. I used a tripod for stability. This is a single image processed in Lightroom then finalized in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.

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